Graveyard- Innocence and Decadence (Nuclear Blast Records)

This is Graveyard’s 4^th full length record.  I am not going to review it song by song but mostly this is going to be an essay about the band. I have been a sort of friend of the band since we first met in Dragens Hule (Copenhagen), when they played their first shows outside if Sweden in 2008.  I love the bands first album with long songs, cool instrumental sections, fewer vocals and great catchy tracks. Hisingen Blues had a really great energy and also a lot of cool songs but the long songs are all gone now.  The band still writes great catchy tracks but nearly all the guitar solos are missing or no longer than about 20 seconds. All the tracks that you start to just get into it and they could really stretch out, jam, make some cool instrumental sections, they are all just stripped away and back into the chorus or another verse and some songs have no guitar solos at all. It could be the producer, it could be the label, or just this is what the band wants to do is make short songs that they can just play exactly the same every night. I just feel like this is band that could be so amazing both live (they disappoint me these days as they never jam or improvise and the last two records have stripped away all the coolest guitar parts) or in the studio if they just had a producer that tries to get them to play and interact and make 8-10mins tracks and not 3 mins songs.  Anyway, this is a great sounding record and Jonathan gets to sing a song and the new/old bass player, Truls also sings one. They have a track with female backing singers, which is cool. A bit of organ here and there for some mood but this is a classic 70s blues rock band, where I feel they make records like your favorite bands from the early 70s made in the late 70s when they were burnt out from touring too much, too many drugs (not in this bands case) and just don’t really play for the musicians out there anymore and more for the MTV crowd with these short songs.  I love you guys but the sound on the record is great and some fucking groovy and great songs but the things I like most about blues rock and roll have been lost to me…  Maybe they jam some of these songs out live but I doubt it..  Peace and love Joakim, Jonathan, Axel and Truls..  Still look forward to see you rocking the stage in 2016…..

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